The first-ever co-presentation between Hear My Eyes and the Melbourne International Film Festival! This August, Hear My Eyes has recruited local prog-rock/jazz fusion act Krakatau to reimagine the soundscape of the fascinating sci-fi fable Fantastic Planet (1973). Krakatau will perform an original score live alongside the film for a special one-night only event as part of the Sci-Fi retrospective at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Event information:

fantastic planet

FILM: fantastic planet

Directed by René Laloux and given its uniquely trippy visual appeal by surrealist Roland Topor, Fantastic Planet takes viewers to the Dali-esque world of Ygam where the human-ish Oms live like pets, or vermin, to the gigantic, intellectually advanced, blue-skinned Draags … until an Om named Terr, raised from infancy in a Draag household, escapes into the wild with access to his masters’ knowledge.

Topor, who along with Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain, El Topo) and Fernando Arrabal co-founded the surrealist Panic Movement, wrote the screenplay with Laloux, adapting Stefan Wul’s novel Oms en série into a sci-fi parable on everything from racism and animal rights to systematic oppression and state-sponsored terrorism.

A sci-fi fable of extraordinary beauty, cruelty and strangeness … recognized as one of the most important animated films aimed at adults."Pop Matters

"A work of art … along with the depth, creativity, innovation and technical proficiency, Fantastic Planet is simply a delightful experience."Criterion Close Up

LIVE SCORE: krakatau

Krakatau was formed in 2010 by James Tom and Dylan Lieberman, two friends sharing a common interest in the freeform side of late '60s/early '70s psychedelic music, progressive rock and keyboard dominated soundtrack music. As time passed, their influences shifted in direction to that of long form jazz composition, minimal music, and progressive left field sounds.

2016 saw a frenzied obsession with the blistering release of Tharsis Montes/Apogean Tide 12” on Growing Bin Records, after which the self-described ‘totalitarian sci-fi meets public access jazz band' went on to headline Western Australian festival Camp Doogs and tour the east coast in 2017.

Krakatau has always been a performance-based group that, while influenced in large part by music from the past, applies these influences with a self-aware, modern ear. In turn this helps to create a sound that, rather than mere mimicry and simulacra, is an interpretation of a wholly 'otherworldly space.’